MOBILE VISION It is important to reiterate here that most art of the world has been free of the kind of materiality illusionism has ushered into art. Indian art has withstood the demand of illusionism during Gandhara, Mughal and even British colonial times—by absorbing it into its polyvalent repertory and lending it a resilient plasticity. A recent study points to how in as mechanical a field as photography the traditional pictoriality survived (and subtly subverted) the illusionistic constraints of the magic box introduced in the nineteenth century.9 The question however is not an isolated one of pictorial space and representation of forms. The imperatives of the mobility of vision spring from the view of the world influx rather than in a momentary stasis, in multiple rather then a singular focus. It embraces reality from all possible life perspectives in time rather than printing an optical moment upon a laterally constructed scene. Perception of such art involves greater mobility, hence the process of its viewing necessitates an active participation rather than cool contemplation. The propensity for such vital contacts that a lot of traditional art offers to the viewer allows it to transcend the barriers of its time. Can contemporary art rise above the conditioning of its history and assert a similar freedom? 1. Hellenistic and Roman murals displayed considerable penchant for illusionism before oil painting was discovered. In the present essay however, the combination of oil painting and illusionism is considered in the way it establishes a new materiality. 2. There is a corresponding spiritual import of these motifs in Christianity. 3. It may be noted that most art of the world did not consider cast shadow as a useful device. Even pre-Renaissance English painting resisted the influence. '(Queen) Elizabeth laid it down as a rule that no dark shadows should appear in the faces of portraits. She sat in the open air to Nicholas Billiard (1537-1619) that he might have no excuse for inserting shadows which she told him, were only appropriate when the sitter had some blemish to be covered up.' R. H^ Willenski, An Outline of English Painting, p. 16. 4. John Berger, Ways of Seeing. 5. Significantly, a lot of art criticism considers 'concrete' form to be an ideal. 6. Richard Lannoy, The Speaking Tree. 7. Ibid. 8. For further discussion on Ajanta and related topics see the author's 'Coomaraswamy and Rajput Painting' in Paroksa, Coomaraswamy Centenary Seminar Papers to be published by the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. 9(a). Judith Mara Gutman, Through Indian Eyes, 1982. 9(b). See the author's 'Viewer's view' in Journal of Arts and Ideas, no.4, for an appraisal of Velazquez' great illusionistic visage, Las Meninas. 52 October-December 1983